Manda Bala

By Tracy Chan

In the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil, a professional kidnapper coldly cuts off a woman’s ear and sends it to her family in exchange for ransom money, which he distributes to the neighborhood children so they can buy food. In a city not far away, where the rich drive bulletproof cars and politicians are immune to civilian courts, a rich man quietly buys powerful supporters in his bid for Congress. Down the street, a plastic surgeon artfully constructs a new, natural-looking ear from a portion of the kidnapped woman’s rib cartilage, and surgically attaches it—for a small fee.

This is Brazil, as described by Manda Bala (“Send a Bullet”) the explosive new documentary directed by New York native James Kohn. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary and Best Cinematography at the Sundance 2007 Film Festival, Manda Bala was screened to a packed house at the Island Independent Film Festival at Next Door in Chinatown on November 8.

The film opens unexpectedly on a frog farm which doubles as a money-laundering operation, and proceeds in a surprising, fast-paced, tersely brilliant manner. A colorful soundtrack emphasizes the tongue-in-cheek approach to its themes of corruption, kidnapping, and the interconnectedness of violent crime within society, Manda Bala takes an ironic and sometimes tragically humorous look at just how bad things have gotten in Brazil.

Manda Bala is a film that redefines the definition of “documentary”. At times, it feels more like an action movie, moving at a rapid pace that never lets up and introducing new revelations every minute. Somehow the producers arranged to set up interviews with a number of controversial characters including key politicians, kidnappers and their victims, a paranoid resident and an oversexed, machismo-driven detective from the anti-kidnapping division who comes off as a Brazilian Chow Yun-Fat. Without these inside looks into the world of organized crime and the prevalent mentality of city dwellers in Sao Paulo, viewers would not realize the gravity of the economic gap or the pattern created when individual elements are woven together.

More than just skillful composition, the film’s success is partially due to brilliant camera work that takes us from the favelas of Sao Paulo--one of the world’s largest slums-- to the rainforests, and shows us both the ugly and the beautiful parts of Brazil. In one notable scene, the eyes of Jáder Barbalho, one of Brazil’s most prominent and reputedly one of its most corrupt politicians, are faded out to the eyes of the masked kidnapper in a not-so-subtle reminder that despite class differences, the two men live by similar principles and are more alike than one might think. In a society where survival depends on the acquisition of money, sometimes the only way to live is by the bullet.

For information on where this film was screened, check outhttp://www.mandabala.com/listings.html.

All images © www.mandabala.com